Police vows to stop marking refugees by pens

ČTK |

4 September 2015

Prague, Sept 3 (CTK) - The Czech police will no longer mark the refugees by felt-tip pens, as criticised by Czech and foreign organisations in the past days, and they will be equipped with special ribbons with the necessary identification data on the refugees, Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said yesterday.
The Czech foreigner police marked the immigrants by writing a number on their forearms during the Tuesday detention of 214 people in international trains in Breclav, south Moravia.
The method was criticised by some foreign Jewish organisations and Czech NGOs.
The Interior Ministry and the police said this was no routine method.
The refugees were marked so because this was an emergency situation after the arrival of a large group of refugees.
The police did not want parents and their children to be separated.
"We needed to solve the affair very quickly," Chovanec said, adding that the police had to work fast and under the stress.
"I cannot see anything bad in this," Chovanec said.
The police headquarters said children in maternity clinics were marked in this way in order to prevent confusion.
"The Czech police will use special ribbons with identification data to be given on hands," police spokesman Jozef Bocan said in a press release.
Regional police offices will be given the ribbons to be used if such an emergency situation occurs.
Like other European countries, the Czech Republic is facing an influx of refugees. The foreigner police stepped up their border controls in mid-June.
Most of the refugees detained in the trains were from Syria.

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